CHAPTER XXI.
CUSTOMS.
t remains to mention a great variety of observances and customs, some of them superstitious, some innocent enough, many of them picturesque and poetical and giving colour and variety to the popular religious life. It would need another volume as large as this to do justice to the subject which we find ourselves compelled to deal with in a single chapter.
The right of Sanctuary, the immunity from violence even of the criminal who had put himself under the protection of present Deity, which was provided for in the Levitical cities of refuge, which attached to the temples of the gods of Greece and Rome, was, when the empire became Christian, readily accorded to churches and their precincts. We have had occasion to mention its existence in Saxon times;[322] it seems desirable to say that it continued to be an important feature in the life of the times of which we are now speaking. There were special sanctuaries—cities of refuge—with special privileges, as at Durham, Ripon, Hexham, Beverley, Battle, Beaulieu, Westminster, St. Martin’s le Grand, the Savoy, Whitefriars, and the Mint in London, and other places. Every church and every churchyard shared in the privilege, and it was no very unusual incident to find it made use of.
As an illustration of its efficacy, we may point to the story that after the battle of Tewkesbury, King Edward IV., with some of his knights, was about to enter the church, sword in hand, in pursuit of some of the defeated Lancastrians who had taken refuge there, when the priest met them at the door bearing the consecrated host, and refused them entrance till the king had promised pardon to several of the refugees. We frequently meet with examples of people in danger to life or liberty taking refuge in the nearest church.
The church was also a sanctuary for property. It was very usual to deposit money and valuables there for safe custody. We give some examples of it in a footnote.[323] Jews were not allowed to deposit their money and valuables in churches.